Even as Illinois legislators have moved to prevent Rod Blagojevich from making a profit on his upcoming supposed tell-all, colorful new details are emerging about just how the disgraced and indicted ex-governor got his book deal in the first place.
"Jarred Weisfeld was just about ready to file his $10 million defamation suit against Macmillan Publishers when he brought Rod Blagojevich to their building to see if St. Martin’s Press, the big commercial unit there, might want to publish the former Illinois governor’s memoir," the New York Observer reports.
Weisfeld, 29, is the former manager of the late Ol' Dirty Bastard and has also sold memoirs by Dustin "Screech" Diamond and Robert Englund, known for his role as Freddy Krueger.
Weisfeld told the Observer that he had reason to believe St. Martin's Press - a Macmillan imprint - would be interested. At one point Weisfeld thought he had been offered up to $350,000 for Blago's book, but in the end St. Martin's declined.
So where did Blago end up?
"On March 2, it was announced that the West Coast–based independent Phoenix Books, which has previously published works by New York Times fabulist Jayson Blair and the German man who ate someone he met on the Internet, had acquired Mr. Blagojevich’s book for a 'six-figure' sum."
